The Times of Harvey Milk is a documentary film which premiered in 1984.
The topic of this film is the life of the well-known gay activist Harvey Milk (1930-1978).
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Director: Rob Epstein
** Producer: Richard Schmiechen
** Writers: Judith Coburn and Carter Wilson
** Based on or inspired by the book The Mayor of Castro: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts (1982)
** Narrator: Harvey Fierstein
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 90 minutes
Several persons are interviewed in this film
Here are the names of the participants
Listed in alphabetical order
** Tom Ammiano (born 1941)
** Henry Der
** Jim Elliot
** Sally M. Gearhart (1931-2021)
** Tory Hartmann
** Bill Krauss (1947-1986)
** Anne Kronenberg (born 1954)
** Jeannine Yeomans
Archive footage is used between the talking heads.
Archive footage is used to support and supplement the statements made by the talking heads.
Archive footage is used when the narrator is speaking.
Archive footage makes it possible for us to meet some persons who could not be interviewed when the film was made, including the following:
** John Briggs (1930-2020)
** Jimmy Carter (born 1924)
** Dianne Feinstein (1933-2023)
** Harvey Milk (1930-1978)
** George Moscone (1929-1978)
** Dan White (1946-1985)
Harvey Milk was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Before he became a full-time politician, Milk ran a camera shop on Castro Street. He was very active in the local area. This is why he became known as the mayor of Castro Street.
Milk ran for public office several times and lost three times. In 1977, when he ran for the fourth time, he won. He served only eleven months, during which he sponsored a bill banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public housing and employment.
The supervisors passed the bill by a vote of 11 to one and it was signed into law by Mayor George Moscone.
The sole vote against Milk’s bill was cast by Dan White, a former member of the local fire brigade.
In 1978, the Californian politician John Briggs presented a proposal which became known as Proposition 6.
If this proposal was adopted, gay men and lesbian women would be banned from teaching in public schools in California.
Harvey Milk and his associates organized an extensive campaign to defeat this proposal. Harvey Milk and his associates were not alone when they campaigned against this proposal. Some influential politicians also spoke out against it, including Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Jerry Brown.
When the voting was completed, it turned out that the proposal had been defeated. John Briggs was disappointed, but he accepted the defeat.
Dan White had supported the proposal. He was upset to see that his political line had been defeated once more. In protest, he resigned his position as a supervisor.
While Mayor Moscone was looking for a replacement, Dan White regretted his decision to resign. He returned to City Hall and asked to have his job back.
This, however, was not possible. If you resign your position, your decision is final. You cannot change your mind and get the position back again.
On 27 November 1978, Dan White collected his gun and went to City Hall. He knew City Hall had just installed a metal detector at the front door, so he entered the building via an open window,
Once inside the building, he looked for Mayor Moscone. He found the mayor in his office.
He said he wanted his job back. When Moscone told him this was not possible, White shot him several times.
Having killed Moscone, White reloaded his gun and went to the office of Harvey Milk whose bill he had opposed.
Milk was in his office. Once inside, White shot Milk several times.
Having shot and killed Moscone and Milk, he left the building, but he was soon arrested by the police.
Dan White was charged with a double murder. His lawyers claimed their client had been in a state of shock.
He had been eating too much junk food, because he suffered from depression, because his private life and his professional life were not going well.
According to his lawyers, this was not a case of murder in the first degree, it was voluntary manslaughter.
The judge and the jury accepted this argument. White was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison.
Members of the public, including members of the gay and lesbian community, were furious when this relatively short sentence was announced. There were riots and destruction of property after the announcement of the sentence.
Harvey Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr of the LGBT community. In 2009, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Dan White did not serve his full sentence. He was released from prison in 1984, having served only five years, one month and a few days. In 1985, he committed suicide.
What do reviewers say about this film?
Here are some results:
82 percent = IMDb
94 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
96 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
On Amazon there are at the moment more than 300 ratings of this product, including more than 100 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.7 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 94 percent.
The ratings are very good, as you can see. I understand the numerous positive reviews and I agree with many of them.
The topic is important. The story deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done quite well. But I cannot go all the way to the top. Why not?
Because this film is not flawless. It has a flaw. What is wrong? One significant detail is not mentioned. One detail has been omitted. What is missing?
The story of Oliver Sipple
Let me explain:
This happened in 1975, two years before Harvey Milk was elected to public office.
President Gerald Ford paid a visit to San Francisco. A crowd was waiting outside the hotel where he had a meeting.
Sara Jane Moore – a young woman in the crowd - had a gun. She wanted to shoot Ford. Oliver Sipple, a former marine, was standing next to her.
When he saw the gun, he stopped her. He saved the president’s life. He was a hero. He was suddenly famous. He was interviewed by the media.
But he did not want to talk to them. Why not? Because he had a secret. He was gay.
He had moved to San Francisco, because the people of this city were often prepared to accept gay men.
He had not told his family who lived in Detroit that he was gay. He was in the closet. He did not want them to know his secret.
Harvey Milk was a gay man. He was out. According to him, all gay men and all lesbian women should come out of the closet.
Harvey Milk knew Oliver Sipple was gay. According to Harvey Milk, the heroic action of Oliver Sipple was a great story.
A gay man was a hero! A gay man had saved the life of the American president! This story should be told!
Gay men were often presented as weak and inefficient. This was a great chance to show the world that a gay man can be a strong person. A gay man can be a hero.
Harvey Milk let a reporter in San Francisco know that Oliver Sipple was gay. From San Francisco the story travelled across the US. It became a national story. Oliver Sipple became a famous person.
When his family in Detroit learned that Oliver was gay, they were shocked. His parents disowned him. Oliver had a brother. His father told him:
“You do not have a brother!”
Oliver’s life fell apart when he was outed by the media. When his mother died, his father told him that he was not welcome to attend the funeral.
Oliver lost the will to live. In 1989, he was found dead in his apartment.
Harvey Milk had good intentions when he revealed Oliver’s secret. Harvey Milk did this to promote the cause of the gay and lesbian movement.
But he forgot to think about Oliver and his right to live his life as he wanted. He failed to respect Oliver’s human rights.
Oliver was not ready to come out of the closet. He knew his family in Detroit was not ready to accept him as a gay man.
Harvey Milk was, in many ways, a great person. He made many important contributions to the gay and lesbian community, and he deserves to be remembered for this, but his decision to out Oliver Sipple without his permission in order to promote the cause of the movement is a serious flaw in his character.
The story of Oliver Sipple is not mentioned in this film. I suspect the director did not wish to ruin the positive account of Harvey Milk.
But the decision to exclude the story of Oliver Sipple
is most unfortunate. When this story is excluded, we do not have an honest or a
comprehensive account of Harvey Milk's life.
The omission of this story is a flaw which cannot be ignored; which cannot be overlooked. I have to remove one star because of this flaw. In my opinion, this product deserves a rating of four stars (80 percent).
PS. Randy Shilts (1951-1994) is the author of three important books about the LGBT community in the United States:
** The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982)
** And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987)
** Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military (1993)
REFERENCES
# 1. Books
The Mayor of Castro Street:
The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
By Randy Shilts
(1982 = hardcover)
(2008 = paperback)
Gayslayer! The Story of How Dan White Killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone & Got Away with Murder
By Warren Hinckle
(1985)
Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk
Edited by Christoper Measom
(With an introduction by Dustin Lance Black)
(With a foreword by Armistad Maupin)
(2009)
Harvey Milk:
His Lives and Death
By Lillian Faderman
(2018)
The Journalist of Castro Street:
The Life of Randy Shilts
By Andrew E. Stoner
(2019)
# 2. Film and video
Before Stonewall
(1984)
After Stonewall
(1999)
Milk
A historical drama
(2008)
Stonewall Uprising
(2010)
Stonewall
A historical drama
(2015)
# 3. Items available online
Sydney Fairman
“The Tragedy of Oliver Sipple: The Man Who Saved President Ford,”
Gale Blog
12 September 2018
Blake Stilwell
“The Sad Story of the Marine Who Saved President Ford from Assassination,”
Military.com
22 December 2020
Mike McPhate
“The Man Who Saved Gerald Ford’s Life,”
California Sun
16 November 2021
Kassandre Dwyer
“The Story of Billy Sipple: The Price of Heroism,”
The Collector
17 May 2024
*****
The Times of Harvey Milk
A documentary film which
premiered in 1984
*****
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